


Don't Wander Alone into the Dark

by Mellow_Yellow



Category: Original Work
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, West Texas, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6880585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellow_Yellow/pseuds/Mellow_Yellow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone had left a few sections of a newspaper on the tabletop and Jim picked it up, flipping idly through the stories. A headline caught his eye and he read about a guy in Florida who got caught throwing his cat off a balcony and then led cops on a high-speed chase to the nearest Taco Bell, where he pulled in line for the drive-thru and was arrested.</p><p>“Why is it always Florida?” Jim muttered to himself, just as the waitress came back to the booth with their drinks and caught his words.</p><p>“You know what they say, all the nuts roll downhill to Florida,” she said, smirking. Bobby glared up at her.</p><p>“We’re from Florida,” he said fiercely.</p><p>As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a crack of thunder loud as the voice of God crashed outside and all the lights in the diner went out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Wander Alone into the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't get enough of zombies, I guess.

 The beam of the U-Haul’s headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating narrow strips of the Texas highway and leaving the rest to Jim’s imagination. He rubbed at his burning eyes. He hadn’t slept in seventeen hours and he was really starting to feel it.

Also, Bobby wouldn’t stop messing with the radio.

“Get your hand off the knob,” Jim said. Bobby snatched his fingers back from the dashboard, frowning.

“There has to be a signal around here, I’m just trying to find it.”

“We’re in the absolute center of nowhere. The static is here to stay, man.” Jim turned down the volume knob so the scratching sound was barely audible. Jim watched Bobby slouch glumly in his seat.

“Maybe it’ll get better when we get to Abilene,” he offered.

“How close are we to Abilene?” Bobby face brightened as Jim glanced at the map on the center console.

“About two hundred miles.”

Bobby slumped again and Jim sighed, dragging a hand over his face. His little brother was doing his best but Jim could tell the driving was wearing on the little dude.

Up ahead the road curved, slicing through the flat desert night, and Jim braced his hands on the steering wheel to ease the truck around the curve.

He didn’t see the naked man stagger out into the middle of the road until he was almost on top of him.

He slammed the brakes but it was too late. The car knocked into the man like a shark bumping a swimmer. He ricocheted off the hood with a solid thud and Bobby started screaming from the front seat.

“Holy shit, you hit that guy! You just knocked him right on his ass!”

Jim wanted to shoot back and tell him to shut up, _he knew what he did_ , but he couldn’t think over the ache in his legs from the vibrations of slamming the anti-lock brake.

“Do you think he’s dead? Did you just kill him?” Bobby demanded. He hit Jim on the shoulder to get his attention. “Is he dead?”

Dead. The word sank into Jim’s brain like dirty water being absorbed by a sponge. Beside him, Bobby was still babbling, but it was just ambient noise. Jim stared out the windshield, monetarily paralyzed.

The headlights outlined the shape of the naked man curled like a fetus on the road. He wasn’t moving. Barely breathing himself, Jim stepped out of the car.

The naked man was white and young, no older than his twenties, and skinny. Also, naked as the day he was born. His arms were wrapped around his chest and his penis pointed away from his body, resting sadly on the asphalt. Wide purple bruises and rust-colored scrapes spread over his back into the shadows of his chest. Jim squinted a little. Some of those wounds looked old. The naked man’s left foot was twisted at an ugly angle and there were a handful of twigs jutting out of a cut near his hip.

“Hey man, you all right?” Jim asked, squatting down beside him, almost cringing at what a stupid question that was. Obviously no one was alright here, least of all the naked man before him. He reached out his hand anyway and nudged the guy in the back. Nothing.

“Is he dead?” Bobby said right in his ear, making him jump.

“Call 9-1-1,” Jim told him. Bobby shrugged helplessly.

“I haven’t gotten cell service since the New Mexico border.”

“Fine, use my phone.”

Bobby shrugged again. “Yours died in Arizona and you threw it away, remember? You said it was a piece of shit.”

“Goddamnit,” Jim said, without energy.

The outline of the naked man’s bones and tendons were visible through his skinny back, making him look vulnerable as a baby bird. Jim didn’t know why he was naked, or why he had walked across a desolate Texas highway in the middle of the night, arms swinging stiffly, not even glancing up when the headlights caught him in their sights or the car started fishtailing as Jim struggled to avoid the collision.

He felt his nose start to burn. He rested a hand on the man’s lower arm, near his elbow. He could hear Bobby snuffle beside him. The night fell still.

Without warning, the naked man let forth a roar like an elephant seal and jerked upward, arms pin wheeling as he struggled upward, fighting for balance.

This time, Bobby wasn’t the only one who screamed like a movie starlet in a horror film. They both scrambled back as Jim reached over to grab at Bobby, who clutched both hands onto Jim’s T-shirt. The naked man lumbered to his feet in the beam of the headlights and they caught sight of his face that had until now been hidden by the asphalt, the skin torn almost to the bone, dried blood caked brown around the naked.

There was something wrong with his eyes.

All three of them froze, studying one another. Jim exhaled as quietly as he could.

“You know what,” he whispered to Bobby, “I don’t think I killed him.”

He didn’t know if Bobby heard him, but the naked man did. He lurched forward, crashing down on his broken ankle so the tendons snapped with an audible pop.

As one man, Jim and Bobby darted back to the car and slammed their doors shut. Jim threw it into reverse and watched the column of dust kicked up by the tires obscure the naked man and his determined march toward their car.

Bobby tried to speak once, twice, then just slumped in his seat, trembling. Jim could feel his own heart palpitating irregularly. He wondered if this was how people died from fright.

They drove another thirty miles without a word.

Overhead, the moon went behind a cloud and the sky opened up, rain beating at the desert and plumes of sand dancing over the country highway as they drove by. About a half hour after hitting the naked man, they passed a sign for a diner in Franco.

Jim turned on his blinker and merged onto the off-ramp.

“What are you doing?” Bobby asked, his voice thin.

“I need some coffee,” Jim said. His own voice sounded deeper than usual and caught in his throat.

“Do you think that’s a good idea? What if that guy—”

“What if he what, Bobby?” It came out sharper than Jim meant it to, but his eyes were burning and his nerves still prickled unpleasantly.

“I don’t know, man. We just drove away back there. What if someone finds him, and then finds us, and…” Bobby trailed off, wiping his nose on his bare hand.

Jim reached across him into the glove compartment and pulled out a spare napkin. “Don’t use your hand, it’s gross.” Bobby took the napkin and blew his nose. They were silent as Jim followed the signs toward Franco’s Fine Dining and Gas Station.

“I don’t want to stop,” Bobby said shrilly as Jim pulled into the parking lot. “I want to keep going.”

“Bobby, I don’t know what to tell you,” Jim said. He maneuvered the truck into a space and pulled up the parking brake. “The truck needs gas and I need some coffee or I’m going to crash into the median and kill us both.”

“But—”

“I’m freaked out too, but I don’t know what else to do. We’ll be back on the road in less than an hour. Plus,” he said, voice rising over Bobby’s objections, “I know you have to pee.”

Bobby went silent. His micro-bladder and its impact on their driving schedule had been a source of contention on the trip so far.

They got out of the truck and walked across the nearly empty parking lot past the empty gas pumps and the service station with a crooked CLOSED sign on the door, Bobby pressing close to Jim, and into the fluorescent glow from the diner.

A burly trucker and two girls giggling over pie were the only other diners in the restaurant. They were all white, as was the waitress who gave them a sharp look as they sat down in a booth in the back, painfully conspicuous, the only black people, black boys no less, in a diner in West Texas.

Bobby made a face back at the waitress when he caught her staring, making her blush and glance away.

Jim flicked him on the elbow. “Cool it.”

Bobby made a face at him too, but sat back in his seat as the waitress came to their booth. She was small and had short red hair that curled in rings around her ears, and seemed determined to make a better second impression.

“It’s a real frog-strangler out there,” she said thoughtfully. She tilted her head so she could look out the window up at the sky. “I should call home. None my kids like storms. I think they all caught the same cold when they was little and now whenever it’s thunder out they fall to pieces.”

Jim nodded, letting the words wash over him. Bobby was picking at his cuticles, ignoring her, and she kept going.          

“I got three boys and a little girl, she’s only two. I have to leave them with a sitter when I work nights and I get so worried about them, even though I’m sure I ain’t crossed their minds since I walked out the door. Course they’re probably asleep now.”

This happened to him a lot. He was so big most people were scared of him at first, but then something in his face seemed to compel them to babble helplessly. He wasn’t a big talker himself but he didn’t mind listening to other people ramble.

The waitress asked if they wanted drinks and Jim got a coffee for himself and a Dr. Pepper for Bobby, and she left to go get them.

Someone had left a few sections of a newspaper on the tabletop and Jim picked it up, flipping idly through the stories. A headline caught his eye and he read about a guy in Florida who got caught throwing his cat off a balcony and then led cops on a high-speed chase to the nearest Taco Bell, where he pulled in line for the drive-thru and was arrested.

“Why is it always Florida?” Jim muttered to himself, just as the waitress came back to the booth with their drinks and caught his words.

“You know what they say, all the nuts roll downhill to Florida,” she said, smirking. Bobby glared up at her.

“We’re _from_ Florida,” he said fiercely.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a crack of thunder loud as the voice of God crashed outside and all the lights in the diner went out.

The girls eating pie and Bobby all shrieked and he reached across and clutched at Jim’s wrist. The sudden darkness made Jim’s eyes peel wide open on reflex. Up at the flattop, the trucker groaned and said, “the _fuck_ ” and back in the kitchen, a couple of men’s voices rose up in startled Spanish.

From her place beside the booth, the waitress sighed.

“Dang generator should’ve kicked in by now,” she said.

Jim peered out the window at the parking lot and gas station that were suddenly dark as pitch. He could hear the rain beating the ground but his eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark and all he could see were shadows of a few parked cars. He began peeling Bobby’s fingers off one by one because his nails were digging into his skin.

The door leading into the kitchen swung open and banged into the wall, making Jim flinch and Bobby and the girls shriek again. A flashlight beam cut the darkness.

“Darla?” a man called.

“Goddangit,” the waitress snapped, clapping a hand over her chest. “I liked to had a heart attack when you slammed that door. I’m out here, by number seven.” The man with the flashlight came over to Darla. He was almost as tall as Jim and the glare from the light carved deep shadows around his mouth.

“Everything okay?” he asked. Darla crossed her arms.

“Why isn’t the generator coming on?” she asked. The man mumbled something gruff and unintelligible, scuffing one shoe against the other as he spoke, but Darla cut him off to lecture him on how she was not going to put up with this nonsense anymore.

Across the booth, Bobby swallowed loudly. “Jim?”

“It’s alright, buddy,” Jim said, but he was distracted. The hair on his arms and legs was standing up straight and his skin felt prickly. He looked out the window again, squinting to see through the dark. It felt like the diner and the people in it were the last things on earth.

Beside them, Darla and the guy from the kitchen were winding down, as blame for forgetting to re-gas the generator was assigned and they moved on to the next dilemma.

“Where are the rest of the flashlights, Darryl?”

Darryl from the kitchen mumbled gruffly and unintelligibly, but he scuffed one tennis shoe against the other, making a sound Jim was already beginning to associate with him.

“All the other ones are out of batteries,” Darryl finally replied. Darla took a breath, clearly ready to let him have it, but before she could work up momentum the door from the kitchen swung open again and two pairs of feet made their way out, the owners of the feet speaking in rapid Spanish. They made their way to Darla and Darryl, knocking into a table on the way, and the group began to confer about the battery situation.

“Jim,” Bobby said again. His voice was wobbling. Bobby didn’t like the dark and even though he had just turned fifteen the fear seemed to be getting worse.

“Your eyes will adjust, just give it a second,” Jim said. He moved to stand up, not liking the confines of the booth and the weight of the darkness on his skin.

“Where are you going?” Bobby asked, voice gone thin.

“Nowhere, just standing up. Relax.” Jim stood and leaned his hip against the tabletop, watching the beam of the flashlight dance as Darryl shifted his weight from foot to foot.

The diner staff didn’t seem to be coming any closer to solving the flashlight issue. Across the diner, the girls were talking in hushed voices. A flash of lightning streaked outside and Jim could see their heads framed in the window, one light and one dark. A smash of thunder followed, making everyone curse disjointedly like a chorus in the rounds. There was a beat of silence, then the diner group went back to arguing.

From the flattop, the trucker spoke up in a gruff voice. “I might could have some batteries in my rig. Do you need Ds or triple As?”

Darla said they needed triple As and the trucker made his way carefully toward the door. Darla handed him the flashlight to take with him to the parking lot.

“Be right back,” he said and walked outside.

Without the lone flashlight, the diner seemed smaller and darker than before. The girls got up from their booth and came to join the diner staff standing by Jim and Bobby’s booth.

“Holy fucking shit this is the worst,” the blonde girl said.

“You ain’t lying,” the dark-headed girl agreed in a flat voice.

Jim turned to the window to watch the trucker walk without any apparent hurry toward the lot behind the closed service station. Jim thought of his dad and the hundreds of times he had marched fearlessly to the fuse box in the basement when the power went out, unconcerned by shadows and basement monsters and what might lurk in the utility closet behind the stairs.

“We should have just stayed in Austin tonight,” the dark-headed girl was saying.

“Your fucking mom would’ve fucking killed you if you stayed over at Chris’s apartment, Sarah. There’d be a huge fucking scene and you’d be grounded for the rest of forever and we’d never see another show again.”

Dark-Headed Sarah seemed to digest this. “That was a kickass concert,” she said.

“Wait, were you at that Lemons show?” one of the cooks from the kitchen asked. The girls said yes and he swore good-naturedly. “Damn, I was trying to get tickets to that for weeks. Was it the best thing ever?”

The girls said it was, and that their friend had given them a ride halfway and now they were just killing time at the diner for the early Greyhound bus to take them home in the morning. All three were just starting to discuss how The Lemons were arguably the greatest band of our generation when there was a loud smash from the outer wall of the diner.

This time everyone shouted in unison. Bobby hopped up and Jim grabbed his shoulder reflexively while the blonde girl swore colorfully and the two cooks shouted, “fuck!”

“What the hell was that?” Darla demanded.

“Maybe the storm knocked down that back tree,” the cook who loved The Lemons offered.

Darla turned to him and the other cook. “Would y’all go check, and see if that teamster is back with the batteries?”

After a few moments of nervous indecision, the two cooks moved carefully to the door and out into the night, pulling their white kitchen jackets over their heads to ward off the pounding rain. Everyone inside the diner seemed to freeze, straining to hear the slow footsteps of the two men as they made their way along the side of the diner

Bobby said, “Jim,” and Jim shushed him, struggling to listen. There was another crack of thunder that seemed to last forever, and in the middle of the din there was a scream.

Both cooks came peeling back into the diner and slammed the door behind them, making everyone yelp as the one who loved The Lemons fumbled with the deadbolt while the other held the flashlight from earlier in both hands, the beam of light shaking.

“What happened?” Darla asked. The two cooks ignored her, scrambling back from the door toward the flattop and speaking sharply to one another in Spanish.

Darla and Darryl hurried to the flattop as well, followed by Dark-Headed Sarah and the blonde friend who swore more, both saying, “Ohmygodohmygod” and “Ohshitohshit” at intervals. Bobby yanked at Jim’s arm, trying to pull him away from the window and toward the flattop with the others, but Jim couldn’t resist peering out the window into the rain one last time.

Two hands slapped against the window from the outside, making wet handprints on the glass as Jim tripped over his own feet, falling hard on his ass as he gaped out the window. From the flattop someone trained the flashlight on the window and illuminated the trucker staring inside, his nose leaking blood and rain as he squinted in the brightness of the flashlight.

“Let me in!” he shouted, moving to the locked door and yanking at it. His face was now feral with fear. He came back to the window and pounded at the glass, staring right at Jim and pleading. “C’mon, man, let me in! Open the door!”

Jim hauled himself up from the floor toward the door.

“No!” one of the cooks shouted and Jim spun around. It was the cook who loved The Lemons who vaulted over the flattop and ran to Jim, throwing his body weight against him so they both fell against the table.

“Travis, what in God’s name—” Darla shouted.

“That dude got bit!” Travis the cook shouted, pinning Jim’s arms to the table.

“What are you talking about?” Jim shouted back at him, struggling to free himself. Travis was smaller than him but at that moment he seemed to have super-human strength.

“We seen him get bit outside,” Travis said.

“Bit by what? Are there animals out there?” the dark-headed girl named Sarah asked, stepping away from her friend and nodding her chin at the trucker watching the scene from the other side of the window. “We need to get him to a hospital if he got bit by something.”

“No, you idiot, not by animals,” Travis snapped.

“Get off me,” Jim said. “I’m not going to do anything, just get off me.” Travis slowly released him and Jim moved away, trying not to look at the trucker in the window.

“What do you mean he got bit?” Dark-Headed Sarah asked again.

“Victor, get over here,” Travis called to the other cook, who came over with the flashlight and stood by Jim. Travis moved to the window and pointed at the trucker.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said.

“Let me in!” the trucker pleaded, but Travis smacked his hand against the glass and cut him off.

“Get out of here,” he repeated. The trucker opened his mouth to argue, but then stopped, turning away sharply to look at something in the parking lot off to his right. He spun around and broke into a dead sprint. Jim watched, caught off guard at the sight of a grown man tearing away like a bat out of hell and disappearing into the stormy night.

“Where is he going?” Darla said from the flattop. She sounded wondering. Jim could relate; the trucker was really booking it, belying his sturdy size.

“The fuck away from here,” the blonde girl said.

“I hope he didn’t get bit by raccoons. Rabies shots really hurt,” Dark-Headed Sarah said.

Travis turned to her. “It wasn’t fucking raccoons.”

“Then what was it?”

Travis opened his mouth, but Bobby beat him to the punch, startling everyone from his spot in the shadows. “It was probably one of those guys,” he said, pointing.

Outside the window, two half-clothed men staggered from the shadows behind the diner and went after the fleeing trucker, moving slowly but with a steady determined gait, picking up speed as they got going.

Bobby moved closer to Jim. “They look like that guy from earlier,” Bobby whispered. It took Jim a second to understand what he was talking about, his short-term memory feeling soupy, but then he remembered the naked man and wondered how he could have forgotten, even momentarily.

“I’m sure this isn’t the same thing,” he said. He sounded weak even to himself.

“I think it is,” Bobby said.

“Sarah, get away from the fucking window,” the blonde girl suddenly hissed. She yanked at the other girl, hand clutched like a claw in her sudden anxiety.

“Tina, what is it?” Dark-Headed Sarah asked, rubbing her forearm where Blonde Tina had clutched at her as she hastily complied, skittering away from the window.

“And turn off that fucking flashlight,” Blonde Tina told Victor, who was shining the flashlight out the window onto the retreating backs of the two staggering, half-naked men. Victor muttered something in Spanish but pointed the flashlight back at the floor.

“What’s going on?” Dark-Headed Sarah asked.

Blonde Tina ignored her. “And someone needs to call the fucking cops or the fire department and tell them about this shit.”

“We shouldn’t use the phones with the storm on top of us like this,” Darla said.

“What the fuck ever,” Blonde Tina sneered. She moved to sit a few booths over and gestured to Dark-Headed Sarah to join her.

“She sure been rode hard and put away wet,” Darryl muttered, watching Blonde Tina tease out pieces of her stiff hair as she whispered fiercely to Sarah.

“What does that mean?” Bobby whispered loudly.  

“I think it means she’s ugly,” Jim whispered back. He was pretty sure, at least.

With the parking lot in darkness one more, Jim felt his heartbeat steady. The others seemed calmer as well now that they couldn’t see outside. With the girls out of earshot, Travis said something to Victor and he snickered. The more they talked, the louder the ribbing became, slipping in and out of Spanish. As Jim heard more, he wished they would stick to Spanish.

“It was like that time I nailed your sister and then made her drive me home,” Travis was saying with a chuckle. “But Nina, not Vanessa. Vanessa wasn’t no great lay.”

Victor smiled with only part of his mouth as Travis kept cracking jokes about Victor’s sisters. It was uncomfortable to watch but Jim couldn’t look away, and he could feel his own lip turning up slightly in distaste.

“The fuck you looking at, asshole,” Victor said sharply.

“Hell if I know,” Jim muttered to himself and turned away.

“Hey, you,” Tina called out sharply to Travis. “Are all the doors locked?”

Travis stopped whispering to Victor and rubbed a hand over his face, then nodded. “I’ll go double-check,” he said, and motioned to Victor to come with.

“What’s going on?” Bobby asked Jim. Jim looked down at him, just able to make out his eyes and nose, which was dripping again. “I wish we’d drove back with Mom and Dad.”

“Me too, buddy.” Just thinking of his dad's steady, solemn face made Jim feel like a kid himself. 

Bobby exhaled loudly and put his chin on his folded arms. Jim tried to think of something to comfort him but drew a blank. When he still lived at home he would make farting sounds with his palms and Bobby used to laugh so hard he’d pee his pants. That was almost ten years ago. Now his little brother was a taller, stockier stranger, and he wasn't sure the farting thing would work still. He was at a loss.

The two girls were still conferring in whispers, glancing around them as Dark-Headed Sarah frowned and Blonde Tina nodded fiercely, occasionally saying, “fucking trust me on this one,” loud enough for the others to catch. They stepped apart and Sarah turned to address the group.

“Tina says we need a gun,” she said.

Before Jim could ask why exactly they needed a gun all of a sudden, the two girls and Darla and Darryl turned and looked at him.

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me?” Nobody said anything. Comprehension dawned. “Just because we’re the only black guys here doesn’t mean we’re armed.”

“Racists,” Bobby said venomously under his breath.

Jim poked him. “Take it easy.”

“What about the Mexicans in the back?” Tina said, hushing her voice slightly. Darla glanced at Darryl, who shrugged.

“Anything’s possible, I guess. It would break Victor’s parole but who knows,” Darryl said, his deep voice almost a rumble.

“Wait, why do we need a gun, for chrissakes?” Jim demanded.

“That’s actually a good idea,” Travis said, coming back in from the kitchen and making everyone jump. “Victor, you got your piece here?”

Victor shook his head. “I forgot my wallet too,” he added.

Travis gave him a look. “Why is that important?”

Victor shrugged one shoulder. “Just saying. I woke up late this morning.”

Watching the gun debate pick up speed, Jim pictured himself and Bobby still in the U-Haul, speeding down the highway past Franco and out of Texas instead of sitting here listening to six strangers talk about looking for the shotgun Artie the cashier allegedly kept hidden under the till at the service station next door.

“It’s usually loaded,” Darla was saying and Darryl was nodding.

“But who’s going to go get it?” Travis asked. “Me and Victor went last time. I think it’s someone else’s turn now.”

Once again, everyone turned to look at Jim, he guessed because he was the biggest one there next to Darryl, but still: no way.

“No way,” he said immediately, waving his hands to ward off the suggestion. “Nope. Count us both out of your plan.” He nudged Bobby back behind him with his shoulder.

“Fucking pussy,” Victor muttered. Jim shrugged, so far beyond being goaded by anybody into doing anything at this point. He pulled out the truck keys from his pocket and jingled them in his hand.

“I think we’re just going to try to get to our truck and make a break for it,” he said.

The diner group fell silent and turned as one, necks turning like a six-headed monster.

“So you’re just going to leave us here?” Travis asked.

Jim raised an eyebrow. What he knew most was that he and Bobby needed to get out of this diner. Past that, he wasn’t factoring any of these people into his strategy.

“You _are_ a fucking pussy,” Blonde Tina sneered, her face snakelike in its disdain. Jim shrugged again. She glanced past him at Bobby, eyes narrowing further, and Jim shifted to block him from her view. “Always sticking together, you people.”

Jim rolled his eyes, then froze as he noticed Dark-Headed Sarah watching him intently.

“Well, fuck you both, then,” Travis said, dismissing, and turned away to face the others. “So who wants to get the shotgun?”

Leaving them to their plotting, Jim looked at Bobby’s shadowy face and asked, “How you doing, buddy?”

Bobby shrugged. Jim felt the way his parents had looked two days earlier, his mom watching her own mother lying stiff in a casket as his dad watched her worriedly, and elderly strangers wandered the funeral parlor and told stories about Nana Carol Jim had never heard before. Both of his parents had stood stiffly the whole three-hour wake, neither saying much.

He was thinking of the funeral and didn’t notice Sarah sidle up next to him until she spoke right at his shoulder.

“I think running’s a good idea,” she whispered, the whoosh of her breath making him start. “I mean, what you said earlier. We need to get out.” She had the darkest eyes he had ever seen on a white girl, deep like pools of ink.

“I’ll go out first and see if the coast is clear,” she said, smiling. She had very white teeth against her tanned skin. In spite of everything, Jim felt himself blush. He could feel Bobby watching the exchange, eyes darting back and forth between them.

His scattered brain could tell he was being played, somehow. Sarah was pretty, sure, but she wasn't slick. The girls didn’t have a car, he remembered, they were waiting to catch a Greyhound. Bravado built up pressure in his throat, ready to tell this hipster to fuck off, but a soft-bellied scaly part of him hidden deep down fought the impulse. It didn’t want to go outside first. It wanted to see if maybe Sarah would lead the way into the night filled with beasts.

Jim stepped away, needing space from those eyes, and turned to Travis, who was describing his master plan to retrieve the gun with extravagant hand gestures. Darla saw Jim approach and gestured with a jerk of her chin, and the others turned to face him.

“The fuck you want?” Victor said, scowling. He turned and spat onto the floor. Darla knocked him hard in the stomach with the flat back of her palm.

“What in the heck do you think you’re doing?” she said. Victor looked at the floor, stewing silently. “You spit on the floor at your house?”

“We need to figure out who’s going to get the gun,” Travis said impatiently.

Victor started to speak but Darla cut him off. “You best not open your mouth if all you going to do is spit on my floor,” she said.

“I was just going to say we should we could use a slim jim to open the lock.”

“If I had my druthers now, we’d sacrifice you as a decoy.”

“For the love of God, I’m sorry I spit on your floor, okay? Jesus.”

“Too late. You’re on my shit list now.”

Darla turned to Darryl, who had been looking on silently during the debate. “Well, you were in the service. What do you think we should do?”

Darryl shrugged one wide, rounded shoulder. “It don’t differ to me.”

“You were in the army?” Jim asked.

Darryl shrugged, and Jim supposed it was a stupid question. They were in Texas, after all. “Served two tours in Afghanistan. Rangers.”

“He got kicked out when he lost his damn mind, though,” Victor said, and he and Travis cackled, but Darryl didn’t acknowledge them. His eyes reminded Jim of a circus elephant, terribly old and exhausted.

Darryl’s eyes kept drifting over Jim’s shoulder. Jim wondered what he was looking at, and he almost didn’t feel the skinny little fingers slither into his palm and yank the keys free. He turned around just in time for a swift kick to the balls that sent him to his knees, his vision going gray as white agony radiated through his body.

“Hey, where the hell is she going?” Victor yelped

Dark-Headed Sarah rushed the door, throwing over her shoulder, “Tina! Move your ass!”

Blonde Tina shoved Darla with an elbow to the gut, sending her sprawling backward with a grunt, taking Victor and Darryl to the ground with her. Tina darted for the door, Sarah unhooked the deadbolt and the two girls escaped outside.

“Fucking bitches!” Travis yelled, apparently outraged to be so unceremoniously abandoned by their short-lived cadre, but it was too late. The others rushed to the window to watch their progress. Jim hobbled slightly behind, having trouble standing up all the way and feeling like he was about to shit himself. Nobody moved to follow the girls outside.

Out the window, the figures of the girls were difficult to make out in the driving rain. The unlock lights from the U-Haul went off and Jim could barely see them running to the beacon of the truck. They seemed like they were going to make it, but then one of them, Jim thought it was Tina, let out a strangled, “ _Fuck_!” There was the sound of bodies hitting the ground, than a higher-pitched scream, and then the noises became indistinct and wet-sounding and Jim forgot the pain in his balls and tried not to vomit instead. Around him Darla and Darryl were yelling and Travis was hollering, “I told y’all, I fucking told you.”

Jim moved reflexively and hugged Bobby’s head to his chest, wrapping both arms around so Bobby’s eyes were covered and both ears were muffled, the way their mom used to do when they were watching a movie and a sex scene came on the screen.

Bobby struggled against the rough embrace. “Jim, what are you—”

“Shut it, Bobby.” Jim squeezed him tighter as the squeals from outside grew louder. There were words but they sounded foreign in their ferocity. Abruptly, the sounds ceased. Jim waited a beat to be sure then released Bobby, who staggered back.

“What the hell, man!” he said, rubbing his sore ears.

Jim flicked him on the shoulder. “Toughen up.”

“They ripped them apart,” Jim heard someone murmur from near the window. “They fucking ripped them to pieces.”

Jim and Bobby moved to the window just as Victor scrambled backward and went to the corner, retching loudly. Darryl and Darla moved away as well, Darla shaking her head back and forth, back and forth, like a broken mechanical doll.

There was now a small parade of people that had materialized from nowhere wandering in the parking lot. They were all dirty and reminded Jim of the naked man from earlier, not from any particular movement or physical characteristic, but the way looking at them made his nose start to burn. That and the eyes. There was something wrong with all of the eyes.

“Why do they always have to be naked,” he muttered, watching the group stagger past, pasty bodies jiggling with each lurch. Their skin was slick from the rain.

“That one has a hat on,” Bobby offered, pointing to a tall man in the back.

Jim leaned closer to the window, almost pressing his nose against the glass. It was like looking into an enormous terrarium at strange monster creatures.

The glass exploded right beside his head.

He fell backward, cracking his wrist on a table leg, but he barely noticed the sharp pain because he was staring at the woman clawing her way in through the shattered window. She had broken a few panes with her fist, a fist that was now worn down to the shiny red knuckles and tendons. She worked steadily, grabbing fistfuls of glass and peeling them away from the pane with what was left of her hands, something black and soupy running down her wrists. She was whoofing and snapping her jaws as she worked, never flinching as the glass tore away her skin.

“Bobby, get over here,” Jim said sharply. Bobby crouched beneath the table, eyes glued to the woman trying to rip her way into the diner. “Bobby, I said—”

Out of nowhere another raggedy woman jumped at the window, throwing her whole body against it and shattering the rest of the panes. The first woman grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back, throwing her onto the concrete. The other woman’s head connected with the ground with a resonating thwack and she fell still.

Jim saw everybody freeze out of the corner of his eye. The first woman came back to the gaping hole in the wall that used to be a window and stood staring at them all, tilting her head oddly to the side, the moment stretching out like putty.

Bobby turned and scramble-crawled toward Jim.

Jim and the woman in the window shot forward in the same heartbeat but the woman was faster and had her tattered claws clamped on Bobby’s arms before Jim could dive under the table to knock her away. Bobby hung in her grip like a dead fish, twitching only barely.

Behind him Jim could hear Victor shrieking and Darla saying, “sweet Jesus,” but it all faded to background as he threw his body under the table just in time to see the woman open her mouth and snap it shut on Bobby’s arm.

Jim had never seen someone bite another person in real life and was so stunned he actually froze for a second, watching the wide, blunt teeth clench down on Bobby’s forearm, the jaw locking as he finally began to struggle.

The woman shook her head like a dog shaking a squirrel and Bobby screamed and kicked out with his legs, connecting with the woman’s shoulder, but the grip of her bite on his arm only seemed to get tighter. Bobby screamed again, sounding ten years younger.

The sound shook Jim back into action and he yanked at the woman’s waist, ripping her free from Bobby and tearing the flesh on his arm wide open in the process. She stumbled back, smacked her head hard on the corner of a table and went out like a light.

Travis and Victor went to kneel beside her cautiously as Jim ripped off his flannel shirt and pulled Bobby onto his lap.

“Jim, Jim,” Bobby kept repeating, his voice dazed.

Jim wrapped the shirt around Bobby’s arm, trying to staunch the flow of blood bubbling up dark as black cherries. “It’s alright, buddy,” he said, pressing against the wound.

Jim could hear Travis and Victor dragging the fallen woman into the kitchen. “Put her in the walk-in,” Victor said and the sound of the two wrestling her prone body into an industrial freezer echoed across the diner. They came to stand over Jim and Bobby, who was growing pale.

“He got bit,” Travis said.

Jim tightened his grip around Bobby, holding his body tight to his chest. “What’s your goddamn point?”

“You know what I’m talking about, man. He got _bit_.” Travis took a step forward and Jim reared back, tucking Bobby closer.

“Touch him and I’ll crack your fucking skull,” Jim said. It came out low and deadly despite how much his hands were shaking. Travis and Victor watched him warily, all three poised to spring.

It was Darla who stepped between them. She shoved at Travis, who didn’t move at first, but then she shoved him again much harder and he took a step back. Victor watched them warily, standing slightly behind Travis with his knees bent.

She looked from face to face to face, then sighed. “I’ll go get the First Aid kit. You,” she jabbed Victor in the shoulder, “go get a towel and clean up after yourself. Then work on blocking up that there window.”

Victor scowled at her and looked ready to argue, but Darryl stepped up so his broad frame was just behind Darla’s left shoulder. He crossed his arms.

Victor gave one last glare but they both turned away. Jim stayed focused on Bobby.

“How you doing,” he whispered.

“Not awesome,” Bobby whispered back. He swallowed thickly. “I wish Mom and Dad were here.”

His blood was fast soaking through the flannel no matter how hard Jim pushed on the wound. Were there big veins in wrists? Could you bleed out from a wrist wound? Jim knew it must be obvious, common knowledge, but right now he couldn’t remember for the life of him.

“We’ll see them at home,” Jim said breathlessly. “They’re probably right behind us, I mean I know Mom wanted to stay with Aunt Sharon and the cousins to help clean out Nana’s, but you know how Dad hates to run behind schedule. I bet they already left. I bet they’re on the highway right now.”

“Do you think they’re alright?”

“Don’t worry about them, they’re fine.”

“Are you sure? What if they got hurt too?”

“Shut up, you goober.” Jim pressed harder on the wound and Bobby sucked in air through his teeth. He let his head fall back against Jim’s arm. His eyes fluttered shut and the sight made Jim panicky. “Open your goddamn eyes. Open them!”

“Jesus, relax.” Bobby blinked. “They’re just dry.”

Around them the others were rustling quietly as Victor and Darryl assembled a teetering wall of diner stools and spare chairs over the broken window crater. Travis disappeared into the kitchen and returned with his arms piled high with towels. As he passed Bobby and Jim, he begrudgingly tossed a handful their way.

Darla knelt down beside them. “Hey kiddo,” she said to Bobby and ran a hand gently over his scalp. “You hanging in there?” Bobby nodded. Darla turned to Jim, three little worry lines etched between her eyes.

“So where in Florida y’all from originally?” she asked softly. The pointed gentleness in her voice made Jim’s nose start to burn and he sniffed to clear the sensation.

“Miami.”

“That’s a long drive. Are you moving? We saw the U-Haul out front.”

He thought about explaining about his Nana’s funeral in California and all of her earthly belongings crammed into the U-Haul, that his mom didn’t want him driving alone even though he was a grown-ass man so she sent Bobby along, and now they were stuck, fucking _stuck_ in this diner all because he didn’t want to wait at his Nana’s an extra day. He didn't have a headache but he felt like he should, and resisted the urge to rub at his temples.

To Darla, he just said, “Yep.”

“You know what, I think you was right earlier. We need to get the heck out dodge. Especially with that window broken, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of them know we’re in here.” She nodded with her chin at the shadows of wet, naked people still shuffling in the parking lot.

Jim rearranged the flannel shirt on Bobby’s wound. He thought maybe the blood was letting up, but he wasn’t sure. To Darla, he said, “But that girl Sarah took our keys. Do you guys have a car?”

“Darryl does. Me and Victor and Travis usually take the bus.”

Bobby’s weak voice rose up, startling Jim. “Before Jim moved out, he used to drive me to school so I didn’t have to take the bus. Sometimes we stopped for candy at the gas station.” Bobby smiled toothily at Jim.

Darla murmured, “That’s nice.”

The whole world inside the diner seemed poised on the edge of something, just waiting to tumble to either side, and for a moment as Jim smiled at his little brother he had a crazy intuition that things were going to be alright, somehow.

Then the other three windows in the front of the diner shattered like a bomb went off, shards shooting everywhere. Jim bent forward to shield Bobby’s face as pieces of glass rained down on the back of his neck.

“Holy fuck, they got in! They’re coming in!” Travis was screaming as everyone but Jim and Bobby scattered. Jim looked up from his position on the floor and felt the muscles in his face go slack.

A horde of fifteen or so naked people from outside was surging in through the broken windows, arms and legs catching on the ragged window frames, skin tearing, but nothing seemed to slow them down. It put Jim in mind of a swarm of ants, crawling over and under and around any obstacle, moving forward by the shear weight of its mass.

Victor grabbed hold of Travis with both arms and they hurried behind the flattop, ducking under the counter. Darryl was yelling something, words drowning in the general clamor, but Darla’s shriek rose above it all.

“Get it off, get it off!”

Three naked women and a man wearing only a tattered pair of shorts had all four sets of claws clenched on her arms and legs.

As the others looked on in horror, Darryl didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed a tire iron left behind by the trucker at the flattop and waded into the fray, felling naked bodies with each swing of his heavy arms. He reached Darla and tore the naked people off her. She collapsed. Darryl dropped to his knees and lifted her head from the dirty linoleum floor. He didn’t seem to hear the guttural sounds around him drawing near. He didn’t seem to hear anything as he looked at his hands cupping Darla’s small curly red head.

A tall man wearing only a ten-gallon hat descended on Darryl, who turned and lashed out with the tire iron, giving a shorter naked man the opportunity to attack from behind. Darryl lost his grip on Darla’s head and she slumped to the ground again.

The naked people were drawn to the death battle like moths to flame. More of the hoard moved toward Darryl’s struggling form until there was nothing to see but a squirming mass of naked skin. There was a final howl and then only grunts and wet sounding gnashing of jaws.

The tire iron came skittering across the diner floor, coming to rest beside Jim’s foot. He picked it up with one hand and stood, dragging Bobby with him.

“We need to go,” Jim whispered but when he glanced down Bobby was unconscious.

He was also heavier than he looked, short and compact, and as Jim deadlifted him up into his arms he felt his hamstrings creak in protest. He stumbled his way out of the diner through the hole where the window once was, following Travis and Victor’s retreating backs out into the parking lot as the naked hoard was still distracted by what was left of Darla and Darryl.

Outside the sky had cleared, the moon throwing the now-empty parking lot into silvery relief. The rain had let up to a light drizzle as the four of them paused. The parking lot was empty now. The naked people had moved on. He almost stepped on someone’s hand, barely moving his foot in time. The hand was gripped claw-like onto a key ring with a U-Haul keychain. He recognized Blonde Tina's remains by the ratty teased hair in a pile near the U-Haul, but there wasn't much of her left. He didn't see any part of Dark-Haired Sarah anywhere.

Bobby’s head lolled against Jim’s shoulder and he shifted his grip. He looked up to see Travis and Victor watching him. Victor glanced around restlessly. Travis shrugged. Clearly their time together had come to an end.

Travis nodded at Bobby’s prone form. “Good luck with that,” he said.

“Thanks,” Jim replied. He thought Travis was kind of prick and Victor was creepy, but he was loathe to separate. They all idled for minute, looking at each other.

The moment was broken when a naked old lady came shuffling from around the corner of the diner. Without a backward glance, Travis and Victor took off in the direction of the highway, leaving Jim standing alone with his unconscious little brother hanging limply in his arms.

“Can’t catch a fucking break,” Jim said to no one.

He watched the approach of the older lady, her wiry bluish hair sticking up in back. Her body was mottled with gray bruises ringed with yellow, her drooping breasts swinging like pendulums as she lurched toward him as she picked up speed.

Jim loosened his grip on Bobby, who slumped to the ground. The lady was only a few feet away now, that white film that covered all the naked people’s eyes making her face look mask-like.

With a sudden jerk, she dove forward, hands outstretched.

Jim lifted the tire iron and brought it down on the back of her skull, knocking her out of the air mid-lunge so she slammed to the ground, her chin connecting with the asphalt. He stood over her with the tire iron still half-raised, until he was satisfied she was down for the count.

He kneeled beside Bobby.

“Hey buddy?” Jim shook his shoulder. Bobby’s head flopped on his neck. Jim cupped his neck with his hand to hold his head up and was jostling him to wake up when something knocked into his back, sending them both clattering to the ground. Jim twisted in time to the see the naked old lady hunkered down, ready to spring.

Bobby suddenly began to reanimate, knocking Jim over and bum-rushing the naked old lady and slammed both of their bodies into the diner’s brick wall.

The old lady threw Bobby off her, grunting, “Unhh, uuuunh,” and leaped on him. Bobby dodged at the last second and kicked her back with both feet. They came together like feral cats in an alley, ruthless and determined to tear each other to shreds.

“Bobby!” Jim screamed, but the words were swallowed by the ragged snarls that rent the air. It took Jim a moment to realize they were coming from Bobby.

Bobby grabbed hold of the woman’s blue hair and slammed her skull against the brick, over and over until the woman went limp and slid to the ground.

Bobby stepped back and tore at his chest, ripping the fabric of his T-shirt, then going to work on his khaki shorts. The feel of the fabric on his skin seemed to enrage him. He shrieked, clawing until his body was mostly bare except for his Scooby-Doo boxer shorts and holey tube socks. As the shredded clothes drifted to the ground, Bobby calmed, and turned to face Jim.

“Buddy, you alright?” Jim called out. His voice was choked.

Bobby tiled his head to the side sharply, birdlike, staring at Jim. His eyes were milky.

“Bobby?”

Bobby took a jerky step toward Jim, then halted forcibly, throwing his head back. He screamed, the sound tearing at Jim’s ears. 

Then he spun around and took off. Jim had never seen Bobby run that fast.

Jim took off after him. His felt his own tears soaking into the neck of his T-shirt as he ran, gasping. He nearly lost sight of Bobby as he turned the corner around the restaurant, but he was still half Jim's size and when Jim circled after him, he came to the mouth of the alley. It dead-ended into a dumpster. 

Jim slowed, then stopped, eyes on Bobby's back as he froze, face to the brick, until, sufficiently cornered, he turned around, slowly, every movement making the hair on Jim's arm stand up. He faced Jim, eyes still flat but in that odd piercing way.

"Don't run away like that," Jim said. His tongue felt numb in his mouth.

Unlike before, when Bobby lunged toward Jim, he didn't stop himself. It happened in a moment, and then Bobby was upon him. Jim didn't know why he didn't push him away. All he could do was hold both arms out straight, struggle, but his feet tangled and he went down, Bobby coming down hard upon him.

"Bobby, don't," he bit out, voice soft almost like a whisper. Like he didn't want to be too loud. 

It wasn't like the woman inside the diner. Bobby didn't seem to be trying to gnaw, only to bite, and he connected. His teeth caught on the meat of Jim's shoulder. Jim thought maybe he yelled, but the blood was rushing in his ears and he wasn't sure. 

He was losing a lot of blood. Bobby must have torn something big.

Dazedly, he wondered what it would have been like if he'd let Bobby run away, as he'd obviously been trying to do. Maybe he'd been trying to keep Jim safe, and Jim hadn't let him. Jim was so stupid. He imagined turning from Bobby, and going to the truck. He imagined going back to what was left of Blonde Tina and yanking at her clenched fingers until the joints popped and he could work the keys free, and it would be almost dawn when he got into the truck and pulled away from the diner.

His head was aching, and it felt like a million spiders running across his skin. He shuddered once, then went limp. He thought of the sun rising over the desert as he drove the truck onto the highway. He would turn the radio up and static would fill the cab of the truck until his ears throbbed. His ears were throbbing now. 

He realized his eyes had closed when he thought to open them. It took a lot of work. When he opened them, his vision had narrowed, or gone dim, he couldn't tell. It was still dark, despite the moon above, but he was able to see everything, like his spectral range had shifted.

He blinked over and over in quick succession, acclimating to the new sight.

Every thought in his head went rapidly, abruptly still.

His clothes rubbed painfully against his skin. He shrieked, voice rougher and higher than it had ever been before, yanking at his shirt and then his pants, needing it off, off, off.

He raised his head. Several steps away, Bobby was watching him. He seemed to be waiting. After a beat, Jim lumbered painfully to his feet.

Bobby looked different than he ever had, but then, everything from before seemed to be drifting farther away, like belongings on a raft going out to sea.

Jim had the instinct to speak, but when he opened his mouth, he found he didn't know how. It didn't worry him. He didn't need to. Instead he felt his head tilt sharply to the right, regarding his brother, taking Bobby in with every detail, until he was satisfied.

Their eyes met. Everything seemed sharp, the resolution turned up high enough to be painful, and mesmerizing. 

Together, they loped off into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ohjafeeljadefinitelyfeel](http://ohjafeeljadefinitelyfeel.tumblr.com/) on tumbles. Check out my [writing side blog](http://gblfiction.tumblr.com/) for more original fiction, possible zombified, possibly not, because life is vast and unknowable, my dude.


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